Direct Request (CEACR) - adopted 2010, published 100th ILC session (2011)

Labour Inspection Convention, 1947 (No. 81) - Bahamas (Ratification: 1976)

The Committee notes that the Government’s report has not been received. It hopes that a report will be supplied for examination by the Committee at its next session and that it will contain full information on the matters raised in its previous direct request, which read as follows:

Article 15 of the Convention. Compliance by labour inspectors with the obligations of maintaining manufacturing or commercial secrets and the confidentiality of the source of any complaint. The Committee continues to regret that it is unable to gain access through the Internet to the legal provisions indicated by the Government as ensuring compliance by labour inspectors: (i) subject to penal sanctions or appropriate disciplinary measures, with the obligation not to reveal manufacturing or commercial secrets which may come to their knowledge in the course of their duties (Article 15(b)), and (ii) the treatment as confidential of the source of any complaint bringing to their notice a defect or breach of legal provisions and the obligation to give no intimation that a visit of inspection was made in consequence of a complaint (Article 15(c)). The Government is therefore requested once again to provide copies of the relevant texts so as to enable the Committee to assess their content in relation to the scope of these provisions of the Convention.

Articles 19, 20 and 21. Reporting obligations of the labour inspection services. Despite the commitment made by the Government in its report received in October 2002 and the reiterated requests of the Committee, no annual inspection report has reached the ILO. In the absence of such a document, the Committee is not in a position to assess the manner in which effect is given in practice to the Convention. The Committee therefore once again requests the Government to ensure that an annual report on the work of the inspection services is published in the very near future by the central inspection authority, that it contains information that is as detailed as possible on the subjects covered by clauses (a)–(g) of Article 21 and that a copy is transmitted to the ILO within the time limits set out in Article 20. It would grateful if the Government would also provide copies of the model reports for establishment inspections, periodical reports of inspection offices as envisaged by Article 19 of the Convention, and any relevant statistical tables that are available or if it would indicate the difficulties encountered in the implementation of these provisions of the Convention and the measures envisaged to overcome these difficulties.